Sammamish Town Center Plan unanimously approved

Significant changes to the heart of Sammamish are one step closer after the City Council this week approved the Town Center Plan.

The council on Monday voted 7-0 to approve the document, which is an amendment to the city’s Comprehensive Plan. It will guide development regulations and zoning for the area, which will be the next steps to come before any actual projects can be reviewed or approved.

“I think the profound impact of this plan will not be realized for many years to come,” City Manager Ben Yazici said.

Council members and some of the residents in the audience applauded after the plan was approved.

Yazici thanked Kamuron Gurol, Community Development director, and his staff for their work on the plan over the past years. He said he has never seen a more open, thorough and balanced process.

“They lived through this document the past two to three months in particular,” Yazici said.

The council had spent two sessions and more than nine hours deliberating about proposed amendments to the plan. Those two meetings were the culmination of nearly four years worth of work by volunteer citizen committees, the Planning Commission and city staff and council members.

Trying to reach agreement appeared frustrating at some points for the council members, particularly as the meetings stretched into the late hours of the evening.

“We’re hoping to generate a plan that actually gets implemented, not a plan that sits on the shelf,” Deputy Mayor Don Gerend said during a discussion about an amendment he proposed.

A key change made last week was the addition of a fifth zone in the Town Center planning area — the “E” zone was applied to a specific area on the northeast corner of 228th Avenue Southeast and Southeast Eighth Street, including the Sammamish Lutheran Church and adjacent properties. (Zones in the Town Center range from A, the most dense, to C, the least dense and were designed to allow a concentration of density at the core of the Town Center, becoming less-dense at the edges of the Town Center).

City staff described the new zone as essentially a holding pattern, to allow those current uses to continue until the City Council changes the zoning at some future date.

Council member Nancy Whitten proposed changing all of the “C” zones to “E,” but received no support from the council. Other members and city staff explained their position, saying that the “E” zone was meant to be used for one unique area, not to be sprinkled throughout the plan.

Council member Kathleen Huckabay proposed a sustainability amendment designed to encourage practices such as green building. That measure passed 7-0.

Another proposal from Huckabay would have consolidated some of the “A” zones, in an effort to strengthen retail, consolidate commercial and eliminate the need for duplicate parking and transit efforts, she said. That amendment failed 1-6.

A majority of amendments proposed by members of the public did not make it to the floor for discussion because they did not receive motions for approval.

The final Town Center Plan, including amendments, will be published this summer.

For more information about the process or to see any of the zoning maps, check the city’s Web site at www.ci.sammamish.wa.us and click on “Town Center” on the left side.

Wendy Giroux can be reached at wgiroux@reporternewspapers.com or 391-0363, ext. 5050.

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